muse: (noun) a person or personified force who is the inspiration for a creative artist (verb) to be absorbed in thought; to gaze thoughtfully at.
A newsletter in which I, Ashia Monet, think about writing and aspire to be the sort of woman who would make Lilith proud. This is my curated corner of the world, so I invite you to dim the lights and find something lovely to drink. Here it is calm, here it is quiet, and here you are always welcome—though I cannot promise that strange things do not lurk in the darkness here.
As a child, my appetite for creating worlds was ravenous. I would sprawl on the living room floor, pen in ink-stained hands, filling composition books as fast as my tiny hands would allow. I don’t imagine these memories are dissimilar to any other creative. Childhood is the time most of us picked up a pen, a paintbrush, an instrument, for the first time, and the rest was history.
For the next few years, I lived, breathed, existed, simply to tell stories. Every experience was compost for a comic, a novel, a short story. Every person I met, everywhere I went, daily experiences were blown into larger-than-life tales. I went through life with lenses on my eyes that could turn the ordinary into the fantastic.
And best of all? It was fun. The idea of publishing my work made me wrinkle my nose in these early years. What was the point of that, when I had more fun writing the stories down than I did looking at them when they were done?
The artist dies many times throughout her career, in many different ways. A myriad of murders and suicides. Sometimes we rise again—a phoenix reborn—and other times we stay down. We walk away for a week, a month, a year, a decade—forever. Sometimes we return from these deaths and rise again. Sometimes we do not. Such is the fare of making a living making art, breathing life into immortal creations that are certain to outlive us.
I think one of the most common deaths occurs when the hobbyist artist decides to become the career artist. I don’t remember when my dreams switched, when I decided to start pursuing publication instead of simply writing for myself, but it was definitely before high school.
I was a Pitch Wars mentee in 2017, the same year I graduated from high school. This was one of the best, most informative experiences of my life—and I still mourn the fact that we’ve lost Pitch Wars as a resource for upcoming writers. I don’t think I’d be where I am today without it, and especially not without my mentor, Katherine Webber.
But that was also the year I started to shift my view of my work from something that existed to please me into a product that was going to be sold and, therefore, had to be good. Had to be publishable.
I’d spend the next six years trapped in this loop.
I wasn’t writing for me anymore. I was writing to be published. I’m grateful for this period of my life—I greatly improved my craft in a short period of time. It wouldn’t have been bad if it hadn’t devoured every ounce of my time and identity.
If a novel idea wasn’t trendy, wasn’t high concept, or wasn’t good enough to sell, I did not bother with it. (Even if it brought me joy!) Whenever I’d spend time on an unpublishable idea, I’d feel guilty. I’ve wasted my time, I’d think, looking at the piles of Word documents that would never see the light of day. After all, the ultimate goal was to be published, wasn’t it? So why was I bothering with things that weren’t good enough?
Something shifted in 2023.
I don’t know what it was. A big conglomeration of things, I’d assume. In my personal life, I’d been forced to slow down. I was no longer the straight-A student balancing a social life with pursuing a career as an author. I was unemployed, stuck in my childhood home, and fighting tooth and nail to keep a handle on my mental health. I had to do things that fueled me. I had to find things to keep me going. I had to write—not for publishing, for me.
I dedicated time to anything that lit me up inside. I followed every plot bunny that popped into my head. And I wrote more in 2023 than ever have before. I drafted two books, revised two books—one of them I revised twice!—wrote and published an essay, a short story, and, of course, a bunch of newsletter posts.
The project I spent the third most time on in 2023? It will never see the light of day. Mostly because superhero projects are so out of style, but mainly because I’m okay with this project just existing for me.
I think, when pursing art-as-career instead of art-as-hobby, it’s very easy to get trapped in an endless loop of creating for the sake of production. Everything you make, then, has to be good—not only by your own internal standards, but by the standards of other people who will be surveying and reading your work.
The compounding damage this causes on your art is immeasurable—suddenly you can’t work on something if it isn’t good enough to be worth your time. Suddenly you’re critiquing your ideas as soon as they pop in your head before they’ve even been given a proper chance to breathe.
Worst of all, it can become dissatisfying. How can it not, when your work is pleasing to everyone except yourself?
I think acknowledging that not everything you write needs to be published can be a way to break free of these expectations and fears of failure. To not write toward being published but, instead, to write as much as you want, to write as much as brings you joy—and if, at the end of that work, you end up with something worthy of being published, that’s great! But it isn’t the ultimate goal of why you sit down at your keyboard every night.
Something magical happens when you shrug and decide that what you’re working on simply will not be any good, but you’re going to chip away at it anyway, because the process of whittling away at it until it takes a more pleasing form gives you joy. And that joy, that pleasure, that process? That is the reason we create art. And that will be the one thing that sustains us through all the rest.
I still want to publish things. I’ll be working on the sequel to The Black Veins this year, with the hope that it will be published late this year or in 2025, depending on how things go. I’m writing new novels, new short stories, a few novellas. I have hopes that some of these projects will land somewhere. But I’ve also been spending time with works I know will go absolutely nowhere, and I don’t even feel guilty about it anymore. The art I make for fun, the art I make for me, is just as important as the professional work I hope to be paid for. They are just important in different ways, because healing my soul, giving myself the time and space to be curious and silly and indulgent on the page, is just as important as making “good” art.
If you’ve lost your luster, try stepping away. Breathing. Returning to listening to the voice inside of your head, and only the voice inside of your head. And try writing some unpublishable things.
recommendations.
In Poverty, by America, Matthew Desmond illustrates how America manufactures and sustains poverty. Not just where it comes from, but why it continues. While I don’t agree with all of the solutions Desmond poses, it is worth reading about, talking about, thinking about. (I think it would also make a great gift for anyone in your life who deeply misunderstands how poverty is an inescapable trap and not just the fate of those who don’t work hard enough).
Over on YouTube, ceicocat’s video essay, The Incel to Trans Pipeline and Inside Mari covers, predictably, the manga Inside Mari and how it links to the recent phenomena of incels transitioning. And it’s so good. It took a year to create and I feel like you can tell—the effort, dedication, and passion is evident. It’s well-researched, well-written, and definitely one of my favorite video essays on the platform.
The Nice Guys (2016) is on Netflix! It’s one of my favorite movies! If you thought Ryan Gosling was hilarious in Barbie, wait until you see him in this 70’s buddy detective comedy. It has everything you could ever want: murder, spies, porn stars, found family elements. The writing is witty, the mystery is compelling, and it’s such a good time. Go watch it! I love this movie! It should be on one of those “100 Movies to See Before You Die” lists!
That’s right, I’m doubling the recommendation section this year! I almost always have too much to share, and I hate cutting the list down so I decided to, y’know, stop doing that.
I read Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum in one sitting, at a coffee shop. I literally couldn’t put it down—and my coffee did indeed get cold while I was absorbed in this book. This bite-sized horror story follows a 19th-century wife caring for her dying husband. Except something is…wrong with him. I’ll let you read and figure out the details. I was absorbed into this novel and still think about it sometimes, in the quiet moments.
Switching gears a bit: something about Boston has made my skin very angry. I’ve been battling breakouts the likes of which I have never seen. So naturally, I ended up wandering Sephora for such a long time, a very nice man who worked there took pity on me and told me to just get Caudalíe’s Vinopure serum. My skin has never been bouncier or clearer. Or smoother? So basically, I owe that man my life. Now I’m passing the knowledge on.
I think In the End It Always Does is a perfect album. I discovered it about a week before The Japanese House came to Boston to end their tour and I loved it, so I went to the concert because the tickets were cheap. I think I had an out-of-body experience at that concert, so I may be a bit biased here, but I’ve been replaying this album every morning because I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t starting my day with a delicate blend of jaunty beats and visceral yearning. The way this band manages to blend bouncy synth beats with some of the most heartbreaking lyrics of all time is unmatched. I’m obsessed with Sad to Breathe, Baby goes again, and Touching Yourself.
where to find me.
Website: ashiamonet.com
Twitter: @ashiamonet
Tiktok and Instagram: @ashiawrites